House of Fraser have confirmed this morning that they plan to close their Cardiff store. Truly the end of an era for those of us who grew up thinking of Howells as Cardiff's answer to Harrods.

The dream scenario is here would be for the store to be taken over be Selfridges, but I’d imagine this is pretty unlikely. Assuming that we won’t see another department store taking the site on, this will be a huge change for the city centre, moving the centre of gravity even more firmly in the direction of St David’s and potentially damaging the prospects of other retail businesses in St Mary Street and some of the arcades.

I wonder what else could the building(s) be used for? It could it be subdivided into three or four medium sized retail units but given the amount of vacant prime units in St David’s it’s hard to imagine that this would be viable at the moment.

I’d guess that the most likely scenario is that the site will end of being extensively redeveloped, with the frontages retained and whatever ever isn’t listed behind them being remodelled to accommodate a mix of uses, potentially including some retail, bars and restaurants, apartments and offices.